Mass Effect: Dave's Latest Playthrough
by Jed Rhodes
Summary: Dave has been playing Mass Effect for years now – he's done it all. So how will he react to a new character in his latest playthrough, who shouldn't exist? SI with a difference. Oh, and look there, I'm continuing.
1. Chapter 1

The gamer's name was Dave – he was twenty three, had a brown beard and long brown hair, and usually wore a t-shirt with some pop-culture reference or another on it. He was not just "a" gamer – he was a consummate, practically professional gamer (his chief regret in life was that no one got paid to play their favourite video games, although he was pursuing the possibility of a YouTube partnership to that effect, which would have been _sweet!_).

One of his favourite kinds of game – the kind he would always make time for – was the RPG. He had played KOTOR 1 and 2, Oblivion, Skyrim, Jade Empire, all the Final Fantasy games (even XIII – fucking XIII) and even had a TOR account, but most importantly, in the Mass Effect series.

Dave had been playing Mass Effect for three and a half years now, always taking the opportunity to play it just a little bit differently. He had played almost every variant he could think of, made decisions differently, played the suicide mission to the very end, killed everyone, killed no one, lost people, gained people, and in short, played the game to death. However, in all this, he realised one day that he had never simply played the Mass Effect games from start to finish, making the decisions he _wanted_ to.

So here he was, starting a new character on Mass Effect.

Her name was Katarina. She was mostly the default female but Dave had given her white eyeliner and blonde hair, as well as different eyes and less prominent cheeks. He liked the default female but she always looked too severe. The next eyes along always seemed... nicer, and making her blonde, as well as the eyeliner, made her look almost angelic.

His mother would so tell him to get a life if she could see him right now. Ha.

He picked the simple soldier class – he almost always resorted to simple "blow it up" tactics anyway, so picking the class best suited for that seemed logical. As a rule, Dave decided Katarina would be paragon, but would have little patience for much in the way of bullshit – and thus would not get along with the Council at all. He picked the spacer origin, and the sole survivor background – he felt it was the best contrast to how... almost vulnerable she looked.

At first, everything seemed pretty much as expected. Eden Prime was Eden Prime. In fact, nothing was unusual at all about this playthrough...

... until Dave got to Flux on the Citadel.

He had played this game a hundred times. Was familiar with how it worked, with the characters and with their stories. With the art direction, the outfits the people wore, the way they moved. He must have interacted with every interact-able NPC ever. And so when he saw someone who, by rights, shouldn't have been there, he was naturally curious.

The man was tall. He had long auburn hair, and wore clothes that could feasibly be called anachronistic by Mass Effect standards – a knee length leather coat, dark jip-up jacket with a red t-shirt visible underneath, and dark, rugged trousers that looked like combat pants. Dave had never seen this character model before, and so he had Katarina approach him. To his surprise, an interact symbol appeared over his head.

_Jed. Talk._

Jed? That wasn't someone he'd ever heard of. He made a mental note to look it up on the wiki later. He pressed the talk button on his controller. As the interactions cutscene began, he got a better look at "Jed" – the man had stubble, tired eyes, and a slightly gaunt look – he was pale and looked vaguely unhappy.

"Commander Shepard, I presume, judging by Lieutenant Alenko and Gunnery Chief Williams," the new character began. Dave frowned. How did this character know so much? Some agent of the Shadow Broker Dave had missed? Definitely something to look up.

"How do you know us?" Kaidan said from behind Katarina on the screen.

"Interesting question, Lieutenant Alenko," the man said, and a half grin came onto his face. "But you'd never believe my answer and I'm not inclined to be carted off to the space loony bin today."

Katarina had a few options how to proceed – the paragon option said _"who are you?"_ and the renegade option said _"have you been spying on me?"_ The middle option was empty. Interesting. David chose the paragon option.

"You seem to have the advantage of us, Mr...?" Katarina said, politely.

"Ha!" the man laughed. "I have the advantage of your last name and little more about the other two. You have the advantage of plot armour, _actual_ armour, and weapons. I rather think your advantage outweighs mine."

Now Dave was confused. Plot armour? That was referring to her as if she were a fictional character, and _that_ was breaking the fourth wall – this was all a little meta for a Mass Effect character interaction. Shepard had the option of asking his name again or leaving, and Dave was disturbed enough to pick the latter.

"Whatever," Katarina said. "I'm out of here."

"Jed," the man said suddenly. Katarina looked at him and frowned. "My name is Jed. If you want to know more, I suggest you come back another time. I'll return."

And with that he left, and Katarina Shepard and her crewmates were left standing around. Dave was perturbed enough to pause the game and save it, before closing down for the moment. He decided to look up "Jed".

* * *

The wiki was usually very reliable, and thankfully enough, it didn't disappoint. "Jed" had been noted already – and apparently, Dave hadn't been derelict in his gaming before. No one had ever encountered him before. Ever. It was as if a new character had just materialised in the coding of the game. On the forums, people were debating how that was even possible – some update? Nah, that wasn't possible. The weirdest thing being, no one from Bioware knew who the hell this guy was either – it went from weird to "down the fucking rabbit hole" as someone ever so eloquently put it.

According to the spoilers on the wiki, the "Jed" character was... unpredictable. Gave weird answers to questions, sometimes ended up in a different chair, almost never gave exactly the same reaction twice. As if he wasn't governed by the laws of video game characters.

That night, Dave returned to Katarina, and (after picking up Wrex, Garrus and Tali and getting his character her Spectre status) went looking for Jed, Garrus and Tali in tow. He found him at the bar in Flux.

"Commander," he said once Dave began interacting. "I figured you'd come find me."

"_How do you know me?", "Who are you," _or_ "Do you work for Saren?"_ were Dave's options. He went for the first.

"I know I've got a bit of a reputation, but I'm not known to the extent you seem to," Katarina said.

"I dunno," Jed replied, half smiling. It looked odd – almost too well animated for this game. "I figure the first human Spectre deserves her recognition. I assume you've actually gotten that far and I've not given the game away?"

"_The game?", "Yes, I'm a Spectre," _or_ "Stop speaking in riddles_" were the options. Dave wasn't normally impatient, but this was freaking him out. Almost like there was... an invader in his game. He picked the last option.

"Talk straight, damn you," Katarina said, pointing at Jed. "I want to know who the hell you are and how you know so much!"

Instead of looking at Shepard as he replied, Jed looked at Garrus Vakarian. He smiled.

"You had reach, she had flexibility," he said simply.

"How the hell did you...?" Garrus reacted immediately, and Dave nearly dropped the controller. A direct quote from Mass Effect 2?

"And Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the strange new character continued, "daughter of Rael'Zorah. An Admiral's daughter, no less. He wants to build you a house on your people's home world." The auburn haired man took a swig from his drink. "Poor bugger." He grimaced. "And poor me, as well. No coca cola, here, d'you know that? One would think it would have boomed. Still, needs must when the devil gate drives." He laughed. "Thank God for Suzy Quattro," he added.

"How do you know so much about me?" Tali asked. Katarina's options were all variations on "what are you", and Dave picked the renegade one, freaked out as he was.

"What the hell are you, some kind of spy?" Katarina said, brandishing her pistol.

"Renegade for life, Commander?" Jed said, a smile on his computer generated face. "Killing me won't tell you anything. Might get me out of here though, but I've got no certainty of that. Tell you what." He turned to look at Katarina properly. "If you take me with you, then I'll tell you _everything_ I can."

"Take you with us?" Garrus said immediately. "And what skills do you have?"

"Apparently espionage," Jed shot back. "I have a few pointers. Call me your Prima Guide to the game of life, Commander."

Dave was now well past "freaked out" and into "this is insanely weird" territory. He quickly picked the "hell no" option and left Jed in the bar, drinking.

What the fuck was this shit?

* * *

The wiki's were confused.

Jed Rhodes was his name. People talked to him in the game, took him with them. He didn't have any skills – was untrained with everything but the pistol and apparently had shit health. No one knew why this character existed. He could die in Mass Effect 1, trying to save the person you didn't – if you didn't convince him not to.

It was impossible, but suddenly, every interface in the game was modified. Like reality had warped or something. He even migrated to Mass Effect 2, where he was apparently waiting on Omega for you and followed right to the end, though he was apparently so recent that nobody had taken him to the end of that game yet. He constantly referenced events that he should have no knowledge of, constantly knew more than he should.

Who was he? What was he?

Dave was determined to find out.

* * *

"Commander," the new character said. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"

He was sitting at a different table. A lazy grin, almost too detailed, on his computer generated face. He looked up at the ceiling.

"_Yes." "No."_

Dave picked yes. He could deal with having a useless character in a game, and by now every Mass Effect gamer on the planet was dealing with the mystery that was this new character.

"If you know something about Saren, I need to know about it," Shepard said.

"Certainly, Commander," the man said, standing up. "I shall wait for you on your ship, shall I?"

And with that he walked off. No choice to join the squad, just a straight up exit. Blinking in surprise, Dave saved and headed for the Normandy.

Everything pretty much played normally from that point on, up until Dave went looking for "Jed" on the Normandy. He found him sat at the mess table, leaning forward. Initiating the conversation, Dave paid close attention, trying to discern any clues he could.

"Commander Shepard," the new character said. "What can I do for you?"

"_I want to talk about you," _or_ "investigate"_. Dave picked the former.

"Do you have a minute to talk?" Katarina Shepard asked.

"Alright," Jed said, leaning back. "I'll assume you want to know more about me. I can't blame you. Strange man, one you've never seen before, knows more about you than he should, more about your crewmates than he should. Got to ask yourself, who the hell is this guy? Am I right?"

_"Yes." "Sort of." "No."_ Dave picked the first option.

"I'll admit to some curiosity," Katarina said.

"No harm there," Jed sighed. "Ok. Can you promise what I have to say will stay between us?"

"_Of course". "Depends". "I'll decide that"._ Dave picked "depends".

"If it threatens the security of the ship, I can't keep that promise," Katarina said, heavily.

"That's fair," Jed said. He leaned forward, and for a moment, looked to be thinking about something, a computer generated frown on his brow. "You know Lord of the Rings?"

_"Yes". "Vaguely". "No"._ Dave picked yes, since Lord of the Rings was one of his favourite movies.

"Ok," Jed said. "That makes it easy. Imagine you were in Lord of the Rings. Don't ask me how it happens. Imagine you were just transported there one day, without warning, pitched into a world you didn't know, except maybe as a fictional one. Imagine you met Frodo Baggins."

"_Go on". "Is this going somewhere?" "Get to the point"._ Dave picked the Paragon option, sensing that this was the story that would tell him the answer to his question.

"Ok," Katarina said.

"You and I both know how much Frodo suffers in his journey," Jed said, looking up at Katarina. "So – you end up in Lord of the Rings. Do you help Frodo? More importantly, do you tell Frodo that everything he's going to suffer, everything he already _has_ suffered, everything _everyone_ in his world has suffered, was the creation of a guy for entertainment purposes? Could you do that?"

"_Why is this relevant?" "So?" "Get to the point!" _Dave again picked the Paragon option.

"Where are you going with this, Jed?" Katarina asked.

"I asked that this stay between us, Commander," Jed said, looking away from Katarina, "but I don't think I trust you enough yet to continue this train of thought. Talk to me again another time. Now, is there anything else?"

Dave left the conversation then and there. This was getting beyond freaky. Had he just insinuated...? He _couldn't _have just insinuated that he _wasn't_ a game character...?

* * *

Jed wasn't just a little meta – he was _ultra_ meta.

The wiki entries were freaked out as all hell. People who had gotten further than Dave were insisting - this was not just a game character. The more people realised that this character wasn't meant to be there, the more the idea of exactly _where_ he had come from remained, and more importantly, the more the question got asked – was he even a game character? Or was he something more horrifying - a real person, trapped inside?

It was fantasy stuff. Insanity. The idea that a real person was in the game? That was ultra-cosmic-dimension-warping wibble-wobbley-timey-wimey-bullshit.

Some options let the player call him crazy. He'd tell you to leave him alone and not be much cop as a conversationalist after that. Some conversations however, were a lot different...

* * *

The full story, according to the walkthrough, came out with an entirely paragon approach to the second conversation you had with the "Jed" character. People had gone through a lot of trial and error with this, and sometime it came out if you picked a couple of renegade or neutral choices, but the only guarantee was to go Paragon.

Dave could almost imagine the conversation that followed from his character's perspective...

_Katarina walked up to Jed, the enigmatic young man who seemed to know so much about her and her team on the Citadel. He had confused her, worried her, but somehow convinced her to take him with her after a couple of brief conversations. _

"_Commander," he said as she approached. _

"_I've been thinking about our last conversation," she said honestly. _

"_Ah yes," Jed said, a smile breaking out on his face. "Interesting, wasn't it? A peculiar thought – what would you do if you were in a fictional universe." He murmured something that Shepard could barely catch. "How often I asked that question."_

"_I was wondering where precisely you were going with it?" Shepard asked. Jed looked at her._

"_You're very alive," he said. "Didn't expect that. All of you, I mean. Garrus doesn't just stand by the Mako, Tali doesn't stay cooped up in engineering. I've been here a lot longer than a day." He smirked. "In my example about Frodo, I left out the most important question."_

"_Which is?" Katarina asked, narrowing her eyes slightly._

"_If you were Frodo, and someone told you that you were fictional, how would you react?" the young man asked. Shepard considered this for a moment._

"_I... suppose, I'd be sceptical, for one thing," Shepard said. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that what you're saying to me, Jed?"_

"_I've always believed that somewhere, in some dimension, what happens in fiction happens for real," Jed said, leaning back nonchalantly. "That might be what happened to me here, although this is certainly a _very_ weird happening if that's the case..."_

"_You're saying that I – that all of this – is fictional?" Shepard asked, not believing what she was hearing._

"_I'm saying I come from a place where this is all fictional, which is not quite the same thing," Jed said. "I'm lucky – I always believed in parallel universes and all that crap, so I reckon being trapped here is a lot less traumatic for me than it would be for someone who wasn't into this sort of thing."_

Dave blinked.

A new character – one who had never been in the game before – claiming that he was from a universe where Mass Effect was fiction?

Damn this interface – there was no option for Shepard to ask more, it seemed set on her walking away from him, considering him a loony. Picking the paragon option – Katarina excusing herself with a quick "ok... I'd better go now," and Jed replying with "of course" – was the best he could do. What the hell had happened here?

Next time he went down to the mess area with Katarina, Jed was still sat there. Entering into conversation with him was easy enough... Dave had looked up the walkthroughs, and apparently it was possible to get him to talk more about his background.

Dave supposed he could have just watched the playthroughs – God knew, lots of people, even top scientists and Bioware people – were playing the game again, to see this phenomenon of dimensional fuckery. But this Jed was the one Dave wanted to hear it from. First hand. Unmodded.

"_Commander Shepard," Jed said, sat back and not looking at her. "That's interesting, that. The name Shepard. You've certainly gathered some interesting lost sheep."_

"_Last time we talked, you told me you came from another dimension," Katarina said bluntly. _

"_And you walked off, clearly thinking I was mad," Jed replied, looking at her. "I'm not. I considered that. I've been here a couple of years, and believe me, it was _not_ easy. I'm only lucky I knew how many years after the First Contact War you were meant to be coming to the Citadel after, or I'd have missed you and my chance to make a difference."_

"_Why am I so important?" Katarina asked. "Is it something to do with the... the fiction you've read?"_

"_Not read," Jed corrected. "Played."_

"_Played?" _

"_You're a game," the young man said, leaning forward onto the table. "Interactive. Highly customisable. I compliment your creator, by the way."_

Dave blinked. Had he just been complemented by a game character on his Shepard? Was that even possible?

"_One of my favourite games too, although I think this is a little too close for comfort..." Jed continued._

"_No offense, but what you're talking about is impossible," Shepard said, as gently as she could. Clearly, he was mentally disturbed in some way. She wasn't exactly certain _how_ mentally disturbed, but the thought that the universe he was in was some fiction was a pretty massive delusion ._

"_I know that!" Jed snapped, standing up. Katarina's eyes flicked over to Kaidan Alenko, who looked over. She subtly shook her head. "I thought about it a lot. What if in fact all of this was some massive delusion on my part, that the game Mass Effect was in fact created by my subconscious and I've been in some messed up coma for years? What if, in fact, the man I thought I was never existed?" Jed approached her, got right up in her face. "Equally Commander, I've often thought that _this_ place, this reality, was the delusion. I could be having the longest nightmare of my life. Or be in a coma. Or even hell."_

_He sat down again, his anger seemingly spent. "I have thought about every option, Commander Shepard." He put his head in his hands. "The only logical conclusion I can come up with is that somehow, be it coma, messed up dimensional stuff or magic mushroom – I am here." He lifted his head and looked at her. "You haven't shot me yet, nor have you decided to hand me in. I wonder why."_

_Katarina had no answer for him. _

But Dave did. The options for the last couple of minutes had included the option to put a bullet in him, or to call Alenko over to restrain him, but Dave had let him speak. Dave had let him speak – and the implications of what he was saying...

Maybe he was just new code. Some character that Mass Effect's last update imported, if that were possible. But if he _was_ in fact someone that had been sucked into the Mass Effect universe, by some unhappy, crazy, Star-Trek-Eat-Your-Fucking-Heart-Out coincidence, Dave had to try and help him.

Maybe everyone who played alongside him had those thoughts. Maybe every gamer thought, "I need to get this guy out." Maybe it was just Dave. But some part of him felt real sorrow for the plight of a man who had been thrown into a world he was impossibly out of his depth in.

He picked the next paragon option.

"_I've seen a lot of things in the universe," Katarina said, not certain what was driving her to say the words. "A lot of crazy things. I'm probably gonna see more before this is over."_

_She held out her hand, and Jed took it. _

"_I promise you," she said. "I'll help you any way I can."_

_The young man smiled at her, and nodded._

"_You have my word, Commander Shepard," he replied. "That I will do all _I_ can to help you, as well."_

And Dave silently added his vow – he would try to get this guy out of the game world too – any way he could.

* * *

**Author's Note.**

**And on that note, the one-shot version of this idea ends. **

**I approached this story with the simple thought of wanting to do a self-insert, but not a **_**traditional**_** self insert: I _wanted_ to do something different. Then it occurred to me – if someone was actually put **_**into**_** Mass Effect, then surely that would affect the gamers playing it as well? It's something of a nightmare fuel situation – someone trapped in a game, and you **_**know**_** that there's someone trapped in a game because you're the one playing it. That's a freaky concept, isn't it? When the guy on the screen is suddenly talking to **_**you**_**? **

**The someone in question is me. If you're gonna do a self-insert, make it yourself, that's how I see it. I'd like to say this is how I'd react, but the truth is a lot of that part's guesswork and possible exaggeration of how sane I'd be, which is to be fair what most self-inserts are as far as I can tell.**

**I decided that it wouldn't just be Dave's disc that had my poor self on because, if that were the case, what would stop him just buying another disc? Making it a worldwide problem with Mass Effect – a copy of me on every disc as it were – makes it harder for the new character to be dismissed as a random coding problem or similar. Makes it harder for him to be dismissed **_**at all**_**, in point of fact.**

**I figure I know how this entire scenario plays out – I have no idea exactly how the fictional version of myself in this story got in there, but I know what – roughly – happens to him. If I get time, I might even write more of the adventures of Dave – playing Katarina – and the self-insert version of me. **

**Until such time as I decide to do so, I leave you with this. I hope it's not been too unenjoyable.**

**Jed.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note.**

**So people liked the original one-shot (now the first chapter of this), and since the concept is... well, interesting, I thought I'd continue it.**

**Uni work prevents me from promising regular updates, and the fact is that I want every chapter of this to be good. So updates will be sporadic. But they will come.**

**I'd tell you more about how this will work, but the best fic speaks for itself. Enjoy.**

* * *

_This would be so much easier if I knew how I got here. I wish I could say there was a precise moment. "One minute I was home, playing a game of Mass Effect. And the next moment – poof! Mass Effect universe. Funny old world, ain't it?"_

_Life isn't quite that straight cut or simple. I don't remember how I got here, what precise moment I left my home to wake up in the Mass Effect universe. I dunno. I might be the sort of guy to have a working knowledge of parallel universe theory in his spare time but that doesn't mean that I know how to describe a dimensional... flip flop._

_"Dimensional flip flop". I might as well say "wibbley wobbley timey wimey" for all the good that description does. I mean really, I'm know nothing. Powerless beyond measure. It's been all I can do to not go nuts._

_If there is one positive from this it's that I came fairly close to the time when the Mass Effect game series begins. No waiting around trying to figure out an economy. No joining the Alliance either, thank God – I'm just not military. In fact, I'm anything but._

_I could lie low of course – hell, the clever thing to do, given that this universe is crapsack world, would be to go hide. But I can't bring myself to do that. After al, I have an unfair advantage. Besides, if I didn't go to see Shepard, that's my best chance of help shot. The rules of this fiction dictate that Shepard is special._

_This fiction._

_Ever more I am reminded that I am trapped in fiction._

_It would not perhaps be so bad if I were trapped in a fiction that were less hopeless, or if I had less back home to lose. But I know how this story ends. I watch Commander Shepard, and I know that no matter the decisions, no matter how hard Shepard fights, or indeed how not hard, depending on what the path taken is, there will be blood, there will be death, and I am now stuck in the middle of it. Curious thought._

_I am trapped in the middle of a video game. I cannot tell whether I am literally inside the game – and thus everything that is happening around me is subject to the will of a gamer – or whether I am merely in a parallel universe, one where the events of this game are all too real. Neither option presents much hope. Is this gamer competent? Does this gamer know how to save us all? Does this gamer know the choices they must make to preserve a galaxy?_

_Does this gamer realise what I am? Do they care? In the hands of this unseen person, as powerful as a God to this world, with the power of life and death over us all, am I safe?_

_If you're out there, gamer... help. Please._

* * *

One day, everyone who played Mass Effect found that a new character - a new main character at that - had been randomly transported in. His name was Jed.

A few days later, they realised that he wasn't just a new character in the game world. Jed was, to all intents and purposes, a real person, who had been trapped inside the game code by means unknown. It had taken days of research and a hell of a lot of people calling in once they realised – once he himself admitted – that he wasn't a part of the game world for real. But it was official.

Somebody was actually trapped in a video game.

His story was one that still dominated most science debates these days: what had happened to him? Once, he had been a young man, normal (it was assumed - the wilder theories had him as some government pawn of a super conspiracy but those were rightly dismissed as cranks), and living a life, but then, totally randomly, he had been transported into a video game. Not just a single copy of that game, at that, but every copy, the software and hardware and every other kind of ware rewriting itself around him, codes weirding out in ways that should never have been possible. It was the ultimate in Twilight Zone freakiness, a horror story - except it wasn't something on TV. He was real.

Video games had taken something of a decline in popularity, with many terrified parents thinking that their children would be sucked into whatever game they were playing at random. This wasn't scientific advice, though – most scientists were of the opinion that, no matter what happened to Jed, it was a pretty freak event – nothing of it's like was going to happen again for a while. Not that this was much comfort t the man trapped in the game.

Mass Effect as a game series however had skyrocketed in popularity once again, the freakiness of a living person being forever trapped inside the code of a game being something of a draw for not only those moved to pity, but the morbid ones who wanted to kill someone for real: there were multiple videos of the many myriad ways that Jed could die in game. It was the most disturbing thing about the development - so many people killed him, and posted the results on YouTube. On Virmire, trying to save the squadmate you didn't, in the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2, or in a space station that had somehow appeared in Mass Effect 3 - his own personal demise. Three chances to kill a real person that all too many people took up.

Not surprisingly, the young man's loved ones had picked up controllers and reportedly hadn't stopped playing since they realised precisely what had happened to him. At least they could see him, even if they could not speak with him, and even if he could not see them.

That was the thing, wasn't it? The tragedy. He was trapped. He couldn't get out. He spoke - if prompted in-game he even addressed the gamer, complimenting them or insulting them on their Shepard - but no one could speak to him. He was cut off from the world, to be observed but in the ways that mattered, never to be interacted with. He didn't know what was happening, he didn't know whether his disappearance was noticed.

Rumour had it Bioware was making - trying to make, anyway - DLC allowing proper questions to be put to the man, and also as a way of passing on some kind of message, but gamers and people who made mods for games had already tried. Jed's code - his essence in the game world - was slippery. Couldn't be properly written up. He glitched to fuck if you tried modifying him, or the world around him, to the point where there were videos - horrible videos - of him screaming in agony after being modded - reminding everyone sharply that he wasn't just a weird game glitch, but a person. Those were quickly taken down and respectable gamers and modders refused to countenance modding him - unfortunately, there were those who were less respectable, and did precisely that. The nature of the human race is that sometimes, there are those who will watch the torture of another being out of morbid fascination.

There was a lot of debate surrounding the nature of Jed's' existence in the game universe. Was every single Jed on every single disc connected? What happened if he did get out - on multiple discs? Would he then be copied? Would there be untold millions of Jeds released? What happened if a Jed died? Given the nature of the Mass Effect games, the choices therein, Jeds could - and did - die. He could die on Virmire, trying to save someone if you let m or asked him to. He could die in the suicide mission on Mass Effect 2 if you didn't do is loyalty mission.

There were some lofty questions to be answered. Very lofty questions.

Dave the gamer, however, didn't particularly care about lofty questions.

He was still beardy. Still had long hair. And now, despite the fact that everyone agreed he would never amount to much at all, he had decided - rather naively, given that there was little special about his copies of Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 or Mass Effect 3 (hell, there was nothing special about them – he was a lazy fuck who hadn't even bothered pre-ordering) - that he, and no one else, would save Jed from being trapped in that game universe. He wasn't quite certain how the hell he was going to accomplish that, but fuck it. He had to try. There was a guy, trapped in a game, trapped in a universe not his own. Dave had already begun a game, where admittedly he hadn't been as nice as he could have been. But he stuck to his guns with Katarina, and he stuck to his guns with Jed, trying to help him.

The first thing he had made sure to do was not do anything rash with him. Jed stayed resolutely on the Normandy, and whenever Dave could, Dave tried to go over and talk to him. Get some insight into what had brought him here.

Conversing with him, as everyone who did so noted, was always rewarding, if a little disturbing. In some ways he did act just like a character in the game - little animation, wore out your conversation options after a while - and yet in other ways the conversations were always so... meta. He would comment if you came back to him a second later, albeit obliquely. The conversations were always just slightly different - a reminder of his unscripted nature - but because it was a video game following the same events the rough line of conversation did not change often.

In this instance, Dave had just been in the Armstrong Nebula, killing Geth as part of his usual pre-Liara, pre-quest experience drive. He had given Tali the copy of the data she wanted and now he was seeing if Jed had anything interesting to say.

"Commander Shepard," the strange character said with a nod as Katarina engaged him in conversation. "Good Geth killing. Really impressive. Well, I say impressive, it's not like its immensely difficult. Geth are thick. Tough buggers and all - but thick."

* * *

Shepard sighed. Jed mostly stayed on the ship, passing comment on things that had been happening. While sometimes his comments were helpful, most times they were... annoying. Like he had knowledge but wasn't willing to share it.

What was she thinking? He _did_ have knowledge, he had shared some of it just to gain her trust - and then more of it just to ask for help - and what he hadn't shared was only because she hadn't asked. She didn't know why she hadn't - hell, he might even have said yes if she asked.

Maybe that was why.

"You did give Tali that Geth data, yes?" he asked its a quizzical eyebrow raised, dragging Shepard back to the moment.

"Why do you ask?" she asked in return. "Does it matter?"

"Everything matters," the young man said, sitting back, looking away from her. "If there's one thing you need to realise, if you're going to succeed, then this is it: every decision you make has consequences, and most of them matter a great deal t the survival of the galaxy." He gave her an odd look that let like he wasn't really looking at her at all. "Although I suppose you already do realise this to an extent."

"I try," Shepard said, slightly morosely. That was the thing she didn't like - the implication that sometimes, just sometimes, he wasn't taking to her but some unknown power - like he expected there to be a puppet master pulling strings behind her. She almost flt mother urge to look behind her. "How are you holding up?"

"I've gone through the stages of acclimatising to my situation," Jed replied with a soft sigh. "Well, in as much as one can acclimatise. Don't worry Commander. I'm ready for whatever use you find for me."

He said nothing more, and Shepard excused herself. Ever since their conversation - the conversation in which he had as much as admitted that he was from somewhere where Shepard and the rest of her crew were fictional - Shepard had been uneasy around him. There were too many variables, too many unpleasant implications, behind what he was suggesting. But worse was the fact that, for reasons that made no sense to her, she believed him.

She believed him. No proof except his knowledge, no logical way what he was saying could be real.

And she believed him.

Shepard thought back to when he had told her she was fictional where he came from.

_"Why am I so important? Is it something to do with the... the fiction you've read?"_

_"Not read. Played."_

_"Played?"_

_"You're a game."_

Now she really did look behind her shoulder, glancing around. Was some invisible person controlling her? And if that was true - what did it mea. For her? Or for any of them?


	3. Chapter 3

Dave was going to save Jed.

It was some sort of obsession he had now, that had overridden the vast majority of other priorities in the short term, and indeed a couple of the long term ones too. Unfortunately, he had no idea precisely how to help the trapped gamer. the theory ad that he would be ale to do so by playing the game - everyone said there had to be some solution - but as far as Dave knew, no one had found it.

Dave knew that he could beat the original Mass Effect - not well, but well enough - in about thirty hours solid playing, twenty if he pushed himself. However, he was inclined to take it slowly with this run. After all, if he got something wrong he might well kill the person he intended to save, and that would not do at all. Especially since Jed was very much in the trial and error stage of gaming: there were some moments people just hadn't reached yet.

Had you actually asked Dave why he was so convinced that he was special, that he could save Jed from the single strangest event in living history, the gamer could not have told you in words. Dave felt - he couldn't quite explain it... a solidarity with the man in the game. From what he looked like and what he had said, Jed hadn't been too different from himself: just another gamer. He had apparently played the game as much as Dave had too, judging from his knowledge of the characters. They were kin, in some way that mattered to Dave.

Although he would never have said it out loud, Dave also felt like this was his chance to do something important. He had never been that irritant before, but now? He might be the guy who _saved_ the guy trapped in a video game.

Dave's routine was now pretty consistent every day. He went to his crappy job at a supermarket, did it well so they wouldn't fire him, spent the money he earned on quick-to-prepare food and snacks that he could eat while gaming, and then the minute he got home every day he walked into his living room, got on his computer, and checked precisely what shit was going down in the gaming world, what people had discovered.

Bioware had promised new DLC - DLC specifically designed in conjunction with the help of Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale, as well as Jed's family. What the DLC was supposed to do was give Jed a message from the outside. Dave was going to get it the instant it came out, but Bioware had to be very careful about precisely what messages it sent. It couldn't be a lengthy conversation because too much interference it's Jed's code created the effect seen when he was modded, and no company official wanted to do that - or at least, none of them wanted to admit what they had done (everyone knew theyd tried modifying the code, with the exact same results). So in the end, it would be a simple message from the outside.

God knew how Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale - indeed, how all the voice cast - felt, hearing the voices they had created saying words they had never recorded. Meta fiction was one thing, metaphysics a completely different one. Proof - if proof were necessary, given everything that had happened - that dimensional fuckery was going down.

With that check done - still no word on a final date, which irritated Dave - the gamer checked the forums for tips on what to do. Tips never really worked of course - he was still such a new addition to the game that people couldn't quite figure out what to do with him - but there were some general things. For one thing, he was actually capable of improving with the weaponry you gave him, although he found violence against anything distasteful. He was most comparable to an Infiltrator - able to learn some weapon skills but also good with tech- in fact, very good once he got going. Generally though, Dave didn't take him out much, although he knew he would have to soon: Jed was the only one to complain if he never got out.

With no new tips, Dave cracked his knuckles and sat down to play some Mass Effect, booting up Katarina. He smiled when he realised what the next mission was: it was time to go get Liara T'soni. He usually ended up making Liara the romance with FemSheps. Her or Garrus in 2. Making Liara the romance felt - for want of a better way to say it - right.

This time, he decided to take Jed with him, see if he had anything interesting to say.

* * *

"I dunno about you, but this planet is a tad... _warm_ for me," Jed said, strolling behind Shepard on Therum. He looked around the volcanic world with a gaze filled with half wonder and half irritation. Nearby, Kaidan Alenko looked suitably irritated himself as he tried to open a door. The Geth had been lucky enough to get some shots off which blew a fuse or two, and Kaidan was the best tech they had on them - not as high a compliment as it sounded in this case. It was times like this that Shepard wished she had brought Tali.

"We all _know_ how warm it is," Shepard sighed. Jed had a end envy to make sarcastic comments - military discipline seemed beyond him.

"Yep, well, thought I'd be certain," Jed said with a half smile. He looked around the place as though he had never set foot on an alien world. "You might have been distracted by killing Geth."

"First planet?" Shepard asked softly, approaching him. she was keenlyaware that Alenko didn't know about Jed's... past. God above only knew what Kaidan would have made of it. Or anyone, of that matter

"Yep," Jed said shortly, not looking at her, but resolutely at the sky.

"You ok with it?" Shepard asked.

"Ok with _what_?" Jed replied, looking sideways at her. "The biggest culture shock I had when I came to this place was aliens, and I got over that ages ago - at least long enough to meet you. This just looks like rocks to me. Nothing I can't handle."

"How big a culture shock are we talking?" Shepard asked, but Jed shook his head and kept looking at the sky. Shepard was saved the trouble of asking him more by Kaidan's sudden call of triumph.

"Back to the mako then?" Jed asked softly. "Marvellous. Someone pass me a sick bag, please."

"My driving isn't that terrible," Shepard protested.

"Just keep telling yourself that, Commander," Jed replied with a dubious look on his face. "One day it might even be true."

* * *

Getting Liara had gone down without a hitch. Apart from commenting on the weather and commenting on his commenting of the weather and "Yup. That'd be me being British then", Jed hadn't done much that Dave would have called out of the ordinary for a character in the game.

He looked... wrong in armour. That was one thing Dave had noticed. Not like he wasn't wearing t or something, but he just looked - ungainly. I'd of like how Liara looked - awkward and not comfortable - but to a greater extent. Would probably make Mass Effect 2 more interesting, at least - God only knew how the two years would treat Jed, but Dave didn't want to think about it. If he could, he'd find a way to get him home in the first game.

Now, back on the Normandy, Dave had to find out if there was anything new to ask Jed. Dave sat back, and started the conversation.

"Commander," Jed asked, looking up at Katarina.

"I want to talk to you," Katarina asked, at Dave's prompting.

"Of course you do," Jed said with a smile. "Experience because of conversations, brilliant system. No point having such a detailed story if there's no player benefit to it."

"_What_?" The bonus option was right there, and Dave was really tempted to take it, but he wasn't here to be rude.

"_How can I help you?" "How are you?" "Are you sure you aren't crazy?_" Dave took the first.

"So if you are from another dimension," Katarina said, sounding more doubtful than Dave wold have liked, "how am I meant to help you get home?"

"Sorry, do I look like an inter-dimensional travel expert?" Jed asked, smirking. "I'm from the equivalent to your twenty first century. I barely understand how to work your tech, let alone stuff that I know is beyond it. But I appreciate the question. Shows you're thinking about it though."

Dave had figured that Jed wouldn't have any information on how to get out of there, but the question hadn't been a total waste. If nothing else, being Paragon might perhaps let him know that the Shepard he was with was controlled by someone who wanted to help.

"To be honest, I feel pretty useless," Jed added. "I've learned a few things about tech, but Tali and Kaidan are better than me. And you haven't asked much about what we're facing. Dunno whether you should."

_"How so?" "It's what you're here for." "If you can't help me, you're useless."_

"Why not?" Katarina asked when Dave pressed the Paragon option.

"It's like travelling in time," Jed said, suddenly very serious, "or the principal's the same. Foreknowledge is dangerous. You make a decision to change something based on what I said and my foreknowledge might become useless. Or worse, I tell you something, you make a different choice, a wrong choice, and we all die."

He shrugged, lightening up slightly. "It's possible."

_"You're right." "I might need the foreknowledge." "Tell me everything I ask for."_

"The risk is high," Katarina said. Dave needed no foreknowledge. It broke with his principals of role-playing slightly to say that option, but did that matter? "If you think it's too high, don't tell me anything."

Did it?

"You're certain?" Jed asked. "I tell you nothing, I'm useless."

_"Yes, I'm sure." "Alright, tell me something."_

Dave paused before acting.

This wasn't a morality question. Neither option looked like it might prove hazardous. And if it helped Jed feel more useful, why not? Dave knew he'd like to feel that bit more helpful.

"If you can tell me anything useful without causing harm, I'll take it," Shepard said finally.

"I'll do my best," Jed replied. "What do you need to know?"

_"Feros." "Noveria."_

"Tell me what to do about Feros," Katarina asked, at Dave's command. He always left Noveria late.

"Take Tali and Wrex," Jed said after a moment. "Sharpen your aim with grenades, and in general. There'll be Geth, lots of them. Big ones too. Running them over works."

_"Thanks." "That's it?" _or_ "Noveria."_

"Thanks, Jed," Katarina said.

"Any time, Commander," Jed said, and the conversation ended. Dave nodded, almost reflexively. He didn't know whether he'd done well with this conversation, but he got seem Paragon points and Jed had done something he considered useful. That worked. Hopefully.

* * *

Liara T'soni sat down at the mess table, finally bringing herself to sit down and eat something. It had been an... interesting last few hours, to say the least. On the opposite side of the table from her, there sat a quiet human in leather coat and tough trousers, engrossed in a book - an old paper book, in fact, which caught her eye, since few people still used paper books. He glanced up at her. He was one of the human who had accompanied Commander Shepard when she had freed her from the Prothean ruins.

"Huh," he said softly, and that was all. He went back to his reading, and Liara was content to ignore him for the moment. The quarian - Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, if Liara remembered correctly - walked over and sat down at the opposite end of the table to the,, apparently content in an engineering report she had to read. Liara almost frowned - so many reading people, and no one endeavouring to make her feel welcome. It wasn't that she wasn't used to loneliness, but some chatter might have been... welcome.

The title of the book was "The Hobbit," and the front cover held the picture of a man at a rounded door. The human seemed engrossed in it.

"What is it about?" she asked softly. He looked up at her, then at his book, then back to her. A soft smile developed on his features, and his brown eyes twinkled slightly.

"It sort of resonates with us in a couple of ways," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Thirteen Dwarves - short humanoids - went on a quest to reclaim their long lost home. They took the Hobbit - another short humanoid - with them. He had never been on a adventure before."

"And how does that resonate with us?" Liara asked. The human leaned forward slightly.

"The Dwarves lost their home to a great dragon - like the quarian people," he said, nodding toward Tali'Zorah, who looked up at him. "They became nomads, unable to settle in one place because they had lost their ancestral home."

"Did they reclaim it?" Tali'Zorah asked softly, before Jed could continue. He looked over at her, realising that he might have upset her, and seemed unable to answer for a moment.

"Yes," a new voice said. Kaidan Alenko sat opposite Jed, near Liara. "The Dwarves got their home back."

"Didn't peg you for a Tolkien fan," Jed said in surprise.

"I read the books, and they... well, _resonated_," Alenko replied with a shrug. Jed smirked.

"Are there other ways in which the book relates to us?" Liara asked.

"Well, you remind me of Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit," Jed said with a grin. "Mild mannered, but going on your first adventure."

Liara sat back, considering this, and could find no real reason to dispute the point, beyond the fact that if archeology didn't count as some kind of adventuring she didn't know what would.

"Archeology doesn't count," Jed added softly, winking at her. He stood up.

"What happened to the Dwarves?" Tali asked suddenly.

"In what way?" Jed asked.

"To make them decide to go back," she clarified. Kaidan looked at Jed, who leant back thoughtfully, looking more than a little troubled.

"They... um, well," he said, somewhat awkwardly, "they were always in mind of what the dragon did to them. They let the rage burn in them. And when the chance came to reclaim their home - they took it."

She nodded.

"My people will do that too, one day," she said, surprisingly sincere and firm sounding. Jed nodded, looking a tad dubious.

"I'm sure," he said. He stood up, nodded to Kaidan and Tali, then to Liara, and then walked off, only for Ashley to walk over and take his place, watching his back with an expression that cold have charitably been called "suspicious".

"I don't know about you three," she said softly, once he was out of earshot, "but I don't trust that guy."

"Why?" Liara asked.

"He introduced himself to us by telling us our own names," Kaidan said softly, not looking at any of them.

"He knew things about my father too," Tali added, looking at them - she seemed somewhat uneasy with the line of conversant, or maybe the strange man made her feel uneasy. Either way, she looked around as if expecting eavesdroppers to jump her for her words. "And the way he talks - it's like he's hiding something. How can he know what he know?"

"Shepard seems to trust him," Liara put in. The Commander was fascinating from a scientific viewpoint, and her judgement seemed reasonably solid (from what Liara had seen).

"That's the part I don't get," Kaidan said with a frown. "They had a conversation, but I don't know what was said. After that, she seemed to trust him."

"You think he's blackmailing her?" Ashley asked.

"No, Shepard isn't that easily persuaded," the biotic replied. "But if not that..."

"It's worth me asking," Liara put in. "She seems to... I mean, we..."

She stopped speaking, flustered - the line of conversation had definitely gone somewhere she wasn't quite willing to let it go.

"She likes you," Kaidan put in, sounding more than a little downcast at that. "If you can find something out, please do."

"I'd feel better knowing more about him," Tali said decisively.

Liara nodded softly, now set on a course of action. It wasn't one she was completely happy with - but it was a start.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry this took a little longer than I had anticipated. Uni work et al. Also, apologies for the length. The next chapter will be longer.**

* * *

Dave had come home from another day's work and was reading the latest update on Bioware's website regarding the effort to get Jed out of the game.

The DLC they had promised was still coming (by this point so many noises were being made by Jed's family, if not the international community, that not doing so would probably have ruined them in both legal fees and public outcry), but it was taking longer than Bioware had expected to make it: they put it as "technical difficulties", which everyone who knew anything about mods took to mean they had run into the same issue those modding the game had.

Dave shuddered when he thought about it. Technically, it wasn't illegal to deliberately do that to the character, nor was it illegal to put videos of on YouTube. Technically, he was only a video game character: a few dozen lines of code with an audio track, and people found amusement from watching the results of modding.

_Dave_ knew that he was anything _but_ a mere video game character. It baffled him that people could put up a thing like that - showing the torture of a human being - and be fine with it, even though he was real. Dave had never thought human beings could prove so malicious, but one brief look - screams and yelling and begging the pain to end - at a video of a "modded" version of Jed was enough to show him that they were.

Ah well. Dave couldn't do anything about that, and if he succeeded in what's he was endeavouring to do, he might well save Jed from any further unpleasantness - if indeed "his' Jed had ever experienced any. That was "the plan". One thing Dave was doing in the meantime was continuing his efforts at romance with Liara. He had booted up his save, and had Katarina walk into Liara's cubicle to talk with her. Oddly enough though, Liara didn't want to discuss any romances.

"Shepard," she said as Katarina approached her, "I would like to know something about Jed."

That caught Dave by surprise: it wasn't normal for characters to discuss other characters in this game in this manner. Then he dismissed that thought with an internal sneer - this game had a bloody real person stuck in it for God's sake. 'Normal' had decided to say "f**k this I'm out" ages ago, and anything that happened past this point was the realm of bullshittery and Fantasy.

_"Why?" "What?"_

"What about him?" Shepard asked at Dave's prompting. Dave frowned at this, suddenly worried about what the other crew's reactions to Jed might be, and more importantly what prompted this particular change.

"Several of the other members of the crew are concerned about him," Liara said softly. She sounded worried. "They don't know where he came from. He isn't alliance military, nor is a mercenary or a C-Sec operative, none does he have any special knowledge. And yet, here he is, on the crew of the Normandy. Some of the crew are concerned he has some... undue influence."

_"Are you concerned?" "Undue influence?" "Don't be stupid."_

Dave didn't offer any response yet. This was troubling.

Among the many things puzzling gamers and scientists alike with regards to this phenomenon was the brief reference Jed had made to the characters not staying in their allotted areas - that they were "alive". That had prompted some serious debates about how alive the characters were to Jed - and if that meant that they were somehow alive (not to mention having the rather humorous side effect of a lot of Renegade players swearing off playing renegade ever again). More to the point though, Dave realised, that meant that the characters could react to how he was, and he had introduced himself to the characters by basically owning up to the foreknowledge.

Dave had to make a choice, though. He had to address this somehow. But what kind of repercussions might it have? Would his choice be a wrong one?

"Are you worried that he might be a spy?" Shepard finally asked as Dave picked the Paragon option.

"I don't know what he might be," Liara replied seriously. "But others on the crew are concerned about whether he is completely trustworthy."

And now, the worst thing Dave could have imagined happened.

_"I'll be careful." "So am I." "I don't trust him."_

Dave had never liked false choices - he felt they cheapened the experience. this was worse than normal false choices though: the game looked like it was about to steamroller Dave into saying something he not only didn't want to say, but categorically wanted not to say. None of the options looked like admissions of completely trusting Jed, and the worst was an outright admission of the opposite.

"Shit," Dave muttered. "Shit!"

What the fuck was he supposed to do? None of these would be any good at all. And yet he couldn't just stop, could he? He had to make a choice.

He hated it. For the first time he remembered, he actively hated all the choices this game was giving him. It wasn't a feeling he enjoyed.

"I can't deny there's something a little off about him," Shepard finally said, at Dave's prompting. "But he's not done anything to threaten the ship yet, so I won't mistrust him. Certainly not just because of an off feeling."

"I hope your trust is not misplaced, Shepard," Liara commented. "Now, was there something else?"

Dave excused himself from the conversation, and quickly saved and quit. He was now too anxious to continue playing: he just hoped he hadn't made things any worse for Jed in there. God knew the guy didn't need that.

* * *

Liara arrived at the mess later that usual. There was only Jed sat there, a dark liquid in a glass before him. Liara wasn't quite sure how to approach him but felt the need to: she needed to know whether he was trustworthy.

"May I speak with you, Jed?" she asked.

"Dr T'Soni," he replied, in a slightly deeper voice than his normal one. Then, to Liara's surprise (and mild irritation) he smirked, a slight snort escaping his nose.

"What is it that you find amusing," she asked, trying - and failing - to keep the annoyance from her tone.

"Oh, just a conversation I heard once," the human replied, leaning back and staring up at her. "I imagine you'll understand what I mean someday. I rather hope you do, it should be more than a little interesting."

Liara sat down opposite him, giving him what she hoped was a serious look that communicated serious intent, although she didn't know human facial expressions that well - despite their obvious similarities in facial structure, humans were sometimes incredibly inscrutable. He stared back evenly, a slight frown developing on his face.

"Ok," he said, leaning forward again, "now I know something is up. What did you want, Dr T'Soni?"

Liara was pleasantly surprised that he had noticed her annoyance so quickly. It made her life a little bit easier.

"I need to know who you are and why you're here," she replied, evenly.

He blinked, and leaned back in his chair again, looking away briefly. Liara waited for his reply, but he seemed to be deep in thought.

"No," he said finally after the long pause. "You want to know, but _need_ is a different thing."

"We can argue semantics, or you can answer my question," she said, now getting steadily more irate as the conversation continued.

"Semantics aside," he countered, "you don't need to know. It won't affect your life, but you want to know anyway."

"On the contrary," Liara said, almost sharply. "I do need to know. If I go into battle with you at my side, I need to know you won't shoot me in the back."

"Ah," Jed said, an almost cheeky grin forming on his face, "but that's a different question."

To her own surprise, Liara slammed her palm down on the mess table, and Jed's grin quickly subsided.

"Are you incapable of answering a simple question?" she asked, now positively angry.

"I am perfectly capable," he replied, his voice almost echoing her tone. "Are you incapable of realising that the answer is an irrelevancy? You ask for my life story. If I said I didn't want to give you it, that does not affect my trustworthiness on the field. I would hope you realised that I'm not going to shoot you."

"I am not the only one concerned about your trustworthiness," Liara blurted out in a rush of anger, and then she stopped, eyes wide. Jed's eyebrows shot up.

"I though that might happen," he said, sounding almost sad as he said it. "It's too much to hope that things ever go smoothly, and it's too much to hope people take you on your word, or faith." He sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I can only assure you that whatever my origins, my purpose is to help Shepard."

"That isn't enough assurance," Liara said coldly.

"It'll have to be," Jed said, his tone cooling to match hers. He stood up and moved to walk away from her. "Ask Shepard if you want more details about me." He began walking away from Liara towards the lift.

"Shepard doesn't trust you any more than I do," Liara threw as a parting shot, more out of spite than any desire to continue the conversation. To her surprise, Jed stopped and turned to look at her. The look on his face was cold, but in his eyes there was a melancholy she could not place.

"Trust me or not, all I want to do is help, so I can go home," he said softly. Then he walked away, leaving Liara sat at the mess table. She sighed: that had been more...confrontational than she had hoped.

The strange man assured no malice, but gave no explanations. There were two possibilities that Liara could see. He was lying through his teeth, or he was being vague because he felt it would be detrimental to his genuine desire to help. Liara felt no desire to do as he had suggested and ask Shepard again but what else could she do?

"He say anything?" came a voice from behind her. Kaidan sat beside her, and Tali opposite. Though Tali's face was covered, her body language suggested something was unnerving her - and Liara could easily guess what. Kaidan looked worried as well. A moment later, Garrus and Ashley Williams sat down too. It had turned into a little conference almost.

"Shepard is being careful," Liara reported. "She doesn't mistrust him as such - he hasn't done noting threatening yet - but she's as aware as we are that something is off about him."

"Of course she is," Kaidan said softly. "She's not stupid."

"So what do we think he is?" Tali asked. "I don't know of any way anyone could know what he knows about us."

"There are plenty of espionage agencies out there," Garrus said thoughtfully.

"But none of them can give that much intel to someone," Ashley put in. "And none of them can find that kind of intel out."

"And the way he was waiting for us, too," Kaidan put in. "How do we even begin to account for that?"

"I could bug him," Tali suggested. "That might give us something."

"Does he have an omni-tool?" Liara asked. "He might have a diary or journal we can read."

"Good idea," Kaidan said, looks around the table. "We gather intel about him. He has intel about us, so it's only fair. Ad if he turns out to be a threat, we tell Commander Shepard."

"Tell me what?" a voice cut in. The crew turned, to see Commander Shepard leaning against a bulkhead, arms crossed, staring at them.

None of the conspirators wanted to look her in the eye as she slowly eased away from the bulkhead, dropped her arms, and wade towards them. She walked around the table, looking at each of them in turn.

"What's all this about?" she asked, the timbre of her voice laced with a deliberate, almost icy calm. They looked to each other, none of them wanting to speak. "Well?" she asked, sounding more annoyed.

"Jed," Kaidan said, his voice toneless and resigned.

"Of course," Shepard said, unsurprised. "Trust issues?" she added with a pointed look at Liara.

"Can you blame us?" Ashley said, almost yelling. "We don't know anything about him!"

"You don't," Shepard replied sharply. "I do. And what I know is enough for me to trust him. Is that understood?"

"It's understood," Kaidan said, looking at her, "but I don't think it's fair for you to ask us to trust him based solely on his word."

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him.

"Don't you mean, it's not fair to ask you to trust him based solely on _my_ word?" she asked, the accusatory tone making Kaidan look away. One by one, she looked each of them in the eyes and each of them looked away, unable to look her in the eye. "I'm not an idiot. My eye is on him. But I need you to trust me when I say that, and I need you to work with him. Understood?"

One by one, they murmured their assent, Kaidan and Ashley being the last.

"I'll talk to him about telling you all," Shepard said. "Then maybe we can get on with our real mission."

She walked away, leaving all of them to ponder their next course of action.

* * *

**Next Chapter will be the "talk to Jed DLC". Can anyone say nightmare fuel?**


	5. Chapter 5

The DLC was here!

"Contact, a Mass Effect DLC," had been released not three days ago, completely free of charge, by Bioware and EA. The blurb promised "a thorough range of questions for Jed, in an effort both to understand his experience in the universe of Mass Effect as well as to reassure him and give him advantages that will allow him to survive." It was the last bit that made Dave especially excited - any help he could give the trapped man would be awesome, although he was curious as to what, precisely, they meant.

The DLC didn't take too long to download to his Xbox, but every second it took seemed torturous to Dave - if he had been being honest with himself (which he wasn't) he was getting far too caught up in the game he was playing, to the point where he was getting obsessed. He was enjoying the experience actually - it made the game suddenly far more interesting, to be playing with a real person, to have real life or death in his control.

Finally, the DLC finished its download. He put the Mass Effect disc in, and loaded Katarina up.

This was going to be a breakthrough in the situation with Jed, he could feel it.

* * *

Katarina Shepard hates paperwork. The Council demanded a full report after every mission, which was bad enough, but it was the annoying little things that got her, like this paperwork for Admiral Hackett.

She had led her team to Luna to deal with a rogue VI: it wasn't an overly complicated report to write, you'd think, but in reality the annoying thing was checklists, dozens of them, all YES/NO/UNKNOWN. "Justify this use of the ammunition at this point..." "Did you use any kind of ammunition that would prove a possible threat to the air tightness of the base?"

Just went to show. The military was all paperwork. The handy thing about being a Spectre is that all the Council demanded was a report in your own words on the events of the mission. Except they demanded it be at least 3,000 words long, which demanded a lot of detail that Katarina had no time for, no patience for, and unfortunately, no skill for (the most embarrassing thing in the universe was having a report actually sent back with a request to remove the grammar errors!).

She sighed, and leant back in her chair, tired and more than a little sick of this entire mission. She hasn't expected her first command for a while, Akuze or no Akuze. It was something of a shock to her system. And in the back of her mind, she was always afraid of failing the new team she had built up: the gruff but loveable Wrex, the too-eager Garrus, the hyper little ball of energy that was Tali, the redoubtable Kaidan, the dutiful Ashley, and Liara... ah, Liara. Katarina smiled. It was strange that she's found a little happiness in a mission to save the galaxy but it couldn't be helped, and it wasn't like she wanted to help it.

She sighed. No. The last thing she wanted to do was fail this little team of hers, and the feeling was a white hot knife behind her eyes, stabbing her every time she thought of failing them...

She found herself standing up, and frowned. She didn't remember standing up. She shook the feeling off. It wasn't like she had never gotten so lost in thought that she had stood, walked, listened to a song, and caught herself completely unaware of what she was doing. The feeling of being a stranger in her own body. She moved to sit back down.

She was still standing up.

She frowned, and tied to sit down again. At least, she thought she was trying to, but her body wasn't responding. I fact, now that she really paid attention, it wasn't responding to anything she told it to do. Not so much as a judder at her thought. She could move her eyes, but that was about it.

The first feeling was an odd detachment, a moment where she felt entirely out of her depth and couldn't even comprehend what was happening. That moment, unfortunately, didn't last very long, and was quickly replaced by an altogether more familiar feeling - and an altogether more unwelcome one.

Fear.

What was this? Some kind of nerve toxin? It was a very effective one, that much was certain: she couldn't move anything. She tried making a noise - she couldn't open her mouth, and she couldn't even get her vocal cords to make a sound. So, total paralysis?

Wait, no, it wasn't total paralysis: she was moving. There was a definite sign that she was still physically capable of moving, it just wasn't movement she was in control of. So what - who - was controlling it? Or was it reflexive?

She quickly had the answer to that one, when of its own volition her body turned around and walked out of the door to her cabin. She couldn't even react!

It was the strangest sensation she believed she had ever experienced, and an entirely unpleasant one - it felt like she was floating along the floor, on a rollercoaster, unable to tell which way it was going or whether it was even going a way she wanted it to.

As it turned out, her destination - the destination her body was being directed to - was not far from her cabin at all. There, sat at the mess table, reading what looked like a novel, was Jed.

Shepard had come to respect the young man, even to a certain extent trust him, but this suddenly happening to her did, understandably, make her think that he was somehow behind what was happening to her now, like some kind of puppet master. In a way, though neither of them realised it, he was the reason for it. He looked up at her as she approached him.

"Commander Shepard," he said, looking perhaps a touch morose. He had looked so for days, though Shepard was unsure as to why (apart from perhaps the fact that he was further away from home than any of them, although he usually seemed able to cope with that).

Katarina didn't expect to be able to reply to him, and stood looking at him for a moment, willing him to notice that something was wrong, that she wasn't herself. But then, to her own horror, something... forced its way up her throat, pushing its way through her vocal cords. It felt like she was vomiting, but slower.

"Jed," her own voice said, perfectly calmly. She felt horrified: whatever this was that had control of her, it was using her _own_ voice to communicate!

"What can I do for you?" Jed asked, seemingly oblivious to Katarina's mounting horror and the... the violation that was happening to her.

"Actually, I'm here to help you," Katarina's voice said. She didn't know where the words were coming from, and every effort she expended to try and halt the words was futile, not even making a change to the tone of her voice, not even straining it.

"Oh, how so?" Jed asked, leaning back in his chair.

"I have a message from outside," Katarina's voice said. She stopped trying to resist it, suddenly filled with shock. Outside? It couldn't mean... Jed had suddenly leaned forward when she said that, his interest clearly more than a little piqued.

"You have a message? How?" Jed asked, standing up like a shot. Kaidan looked over to them from his spot, but didn't walk over to them yet.

"Bioware have been working in conjunction with your family to try and create DLC to get a message to you," Katarina's voice said. The words were strange to her: they made no sense. They didn't seem to entirely sit well with Jed, either, as he frowned at her.

"So this is the actual game - there are people out there, playing this game?" he asked, tilting his head.

"This DLC is the finished result of our efforts to contact you," the thing controlling Katarina's voice said, continuing as if Jed had said nothing. "We cannot directly converse with you because any attempt to interfere with your code in game results in side effects."

"What do you mean side effects?" Jed asked, looking more than a little perturbed. "Side effects like, what, glitching?"

"We regret that we cannot answer any questions you have, since your behaviour in game is infinitely more randomised than anything else," Katarina's voice continued, the tone light and friendly - the exact opposite of how Katarina felt. "We can only ask you questions, and reassure you that everything we can do to help you is being done."

"Has it occurred to you muppets to put an Acme dimension hopper in this game?!" Jed snapped. Shepard would have frowned if she had control over her muscles, but obviously she did not. Her stomach turned slightly. The alien feeling of words forcing their way out without her mental consent making her feel like throwing up.

"Do you know how you managed to get into the game?" her voice asked instead, calmly and politely.

"Of course not," Jed said, sharply. "I'm not a quantum physicist and frankly, this is the stuff of bad fanfiction." He paused for a moment. "I've looked for ways out, but I can't figure anything out from here, I'm sorry."

"Are you healthy?" Katarina's voice asked. She would have frowned at the incongruity of the question if she had any control over her face muscles.

"My mother made you ask that one, didn't she?" Jed smirked, a tired humour lighting his eyes for a brief moment. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Do you need or wish for any special equipment?" whatever was controlling Katarina asked next.

"If you guys can give me anything that makes me feel less like a fifth wheel on this ship, I'd greatly appreciate it," Jed replied after a moment, "and maybe write in a house on the Citadel and a couple of million credits, but otherwise, I'm fine."

"Do you have any message for your family?" Katarina's voice asked next, the tone softer. Jed blinked, seemingly shocked by the question.

"I... I..." he stammered, and then he hesitated. After a long moment, he spoke. "Keep the faith. You have all my love. I won't stop trying to get back to you."

"That's all we could fit into this conversation," the thing forcing its way through Katarina's vocal cords said after a long moment, and Jed looked disappointed. "But we just want to remind you that we're all thinking of you. Your family loves you, and we won't stop trying to get you out of there."

Jed looked almost overwhelmed, his lip almost trembling. "Thanks," he said. "I'm glad to know you know I'm here."

And with that, whatever hold the thing speaking through Katarina had was gone. She immediately collapsed to the deck onto her front, stomach heaving, her limbs losing all their strength, feeling like they had turned to liquid. Kaidan ran over, and Jed crouched down next to her, turning her over.

"Commander?" he asked, leaning in, concern evident on his face. "Are you alright?"

Almost as a reflex - and as a way of taking her frustrations out, although she would never have admitted it - her fist shot out, socking him right in the jaw. He stumbled backwards, falling to the floor. The one punch had drained the strength of Shepard's forearm.

"Shepard!" Kaidan called.

"Dammit!" Jed said, getting to his feet slowly. He looked up - just in time for Kaidan to pin him to the bulkhead with his forearm.

"Stay right there," the Lieutenant growled angrily.

"Alenko!" Shepard called, getting used to her own voice again. Compared to the smooth tones of the thing that had used them, her own voice sounding hoarse and throaty. "Let him go."

Kaidan took a long moment to comply with that order, giving Jed a filthy look as he did so.

"You're lucky the Commander's here," he said, growling. Jed shot him a glare.

"That's enough Lieutenant," Shepard said, standing up shakily, a little strength returning to her limbs, albeit just barely. She looked at Jed, who was scrutinising her with some concern. "You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?"

Jed shot Alenko a look, but the Lieutenant just stood there, folding his arms. Katarina was too pissed off to tell him to move - she didn't give a damn about keeping Jed's secrets.

"That was the outside, trying to contact me," the young man said after a moment, clearly trying to word it delicately. Kaidan frowned, more than a little confused, but to Katarina's relief he didn't interrupt. "As you heard."

"Why'd they do it through me?" Shepard asked, angrily. "That was one of the most horrible things that ever happened to me!"

"What happened?" Jed asked, frowning. So he wasn't aware,

"It felt like..." Shepard paused, unsure how to describe it. "Like something else was using my body, like a puppet on a damn string."

She didn't go into too much detail, about the horror of trying to move your body but it just not working. To be honest, she didn't want to even think about it. Jed scratched his chin, clearly deep in thought. Kaidan looked at Shepard, clearly more than a little lost. She held a hand up to tell him to stow it, and thankfully he did.

"Fourth wall breaking," Jed finally said. "The interface out there won't have changed, but you perceived a difference because it broke the fourth wall in a way it normally doesn't."

"Perceived a difference?" Shepard said, frowning. "You mean there isn't an actual difference?"

"I don't think so," Jed said, slightly apologetically. "This proves if nothing else that your actions and choices are still largely subject to... well, what we discussed before," he finished lamely, throwing a look at Kaidan.

"But it never feels like that," Shepard said, perturbed. "Ever."

"Of course it doesn't," Jed said. "Because normally its in context, you're doing things you'd normally do anyway. My presence here adds something that isn't. It's probably a miracle you haven't felt this way before around me."

"That isn't reassuring," Shepard growled.

"I can't offer reassurance," Jed said sadly, shrugging his shoulders. "This was like ultra meta-fictional, though, which is why it must have felt so... alien to you. So much so that your consciousness disconnected from the control... of course, I could just be spouting Star Trek psychobabble," the young man added with a tired smile, "but since we're in the realms of science fiction, that's allowed."

"Save the bullshit," Katarina swore. "I need to know that won't happen again."

"I can't give you that reassurance, however much I want to," Jed said seriously. "We're in the damn Twilight Zone, and they don't have the perspective you and I do." He leaned forward and whispered to her, trying to keep it out of Kaidan's earshot. "To them, you're a computer generated character on a screen, not a person: they either don't see or don't care about these reactions, and I'd bet on the former."

"I'm sorry," Kaidan said, butting into the conversation, "but what the hell is going on?!"

They had both almost forgotten the Lieutenant's presence. Shepard looked at Jed, Jed at Shepard. This was going to take some explaining.

* * *

For Dave, the conversation had ended before Katarina's collapse, with a fade out to blackness, and then back to Jed and Katarina, who were precisely where they had been when he had taken her to converse with Jed. Had he known about he reaction, he might have felt less elated about getting to speak to Jed.

The DLC triggered when you went to Shepard's cabin and triggered a "press A" there - subtle, but interesting enough in its own right.

It was nice to have told Jed his family was waiting for him still - Dave liked that he'd been able to give the guy hope. Overall however, Dave was disappointed. This DLC had given Jed reassurance that people were trying to get him out, but there were no new pieces of equipment. He reasoned to himself that they were actually going to be part of Mass Effect 2, which had a different system. He certainly hoped so...

He shook his head. Ultimately, that was irrelevant to his task of getting Jed out of there. Dave had done enough side missions now, he felt. his team was prepared, and now he was ready for the big stuff, the main missions.

It was time to take on Feros.

* * *

**Don't be fooled by how fast I've gotten this up, this one was a pain in the arse to write. Hope you enjoyed it. Got to admit, I'm worried I haven't brought the horror of the situation out enough.**

**The next couple of chapters are going to explore not only the Feros mission, but also some psychological stuff not only for Shepard and Jed, but Dave and the wider gaming community in this universe as well. I'm not intending to time skip with Katarina, but I can show what other people are doing with their Shepards...**


End file.
